Moving

Hi, everyone. Since we are no longer adopting Rose Carly and since this was the third baby girl we were "supposed" to adopt, I decided to move my blog and name it for we live. My new address is dogwoodtrailfarm.blogspot.com . Please come visit me there. Thanks!

Our Thankful Tree

We started doing this several years ago beginning around November 1st. The tree is made of plain brown paper and the leaves out of construction paper. Every time we think of something we are thankful for we write it on a leaf. I encourage the kids to search beyond the obvious. Whenever we have guests, we ask them to please add to our tree. After Thanksgiving, when taking it down, I go through the leaves and save the most meaningful or sentimental ones for the next year. I place those at the bottom of the trunk like already fallen leaves. It's alot of fun and a reminder to truly be thankful for life's blessings.

Everyone has been so sympathetic and supportive throughout our whole adoption process. I am so thankful. Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning I had the blues. Before long I had worked myself up into a real pity party. We committed to adopt Kaflaure on March 1st. We started gathering our paperwork before that. So it has been almost 9 months since we started. It's such a long process and we can't seem to make any progress. I just kept getting these mental pictures : the first was that I was on a racehorse that I could not get to go through the starting gate even though the race had already started and many of the horses were already half around the field; another was of me trying to paddle a canoe across a lake and I kept getting caught in a whirlpool and going in circles; then I thought about paying "mother may I?" and I kept getting the go one step forward and two steps back while everyone else was getting giant steps or bunny hops. I have quite an imagination and decided I had better get up and quit dwelling on my adoption woes.
The kids and I have been studying for a couple of weeks about cheerfulness/joy in our daily family devotions. The last few days it has been about having joy in the midst of troubles and trials. Caleb remarked the morning I told him of Rose Carly health issues that "isn't it timely that we should be studying about having joy even when things are bad and now we find out about Rose Carly?" How true. I decided today would be a good day for me to review the past lessons on my own.
Well, this week we saw God answer prayers with Rose Carly. Today I received a monthly newsletter from a minister I truly respect. He reminded me that God sees the future and He has a plan for my life, my family, and this adoption. I am not sure who we are going to adopt, if we are going to adopt, or how long it will take if we do but He does. It's all under control. I just have to let go.

How quickly things change. A wonderful family, who has amazingly just brought home 2 haitian angels in September, has stepped up to say they would also like to adopt Rose Carly. We are delighted that they will be continuing on where we could not with that sweet baby girl. Now that she has been diagnosed, she will start on meds. The family is hoping to expedite their adoption so they can get her home and involved with early intervention therapy. So many people have been praying for Rose Carly over the last few months. It's exciting to see how God answers those prayers.

Sad News

We recently got an email from the adoption facillitator of our orphanage. I felt the same sense of foreboding as in the past. She started the email with "It's painful for me to have to tell you this but I must." Her news was that our sweet little Rose Carly has been diagnosed with Graves Disease. When I shared it online, I had a few of the moms that have spent time with her to say they think that she may have some other serious medical issues. We are so very sad for her. She is very responsive. One mom told me she had only to smile at her from across the room and she would smile back. She is so precious.
We have decided not to pursue our adoption with her. We are praying that a special family who is more prepared to meet her needs will step up as we do not feel that we are able.
I called Marie, the orphanage director, about the situation. She sounded as discouraged as she did the night she had to tell me that our Kaflaure had been taken away. She truly cares for the children and their adopting families. We discussed everything for quite sometime. She explained that she had been concerned about Rose Carly and had held our file until she had a diagnosis. The older Rose Carly got, it was more evident that something was wrong. Marie was watching the baby and had to keep taking her back to the doctor for testing before she was diagnosed. She had not shared her concerns with me so I was antsy about the hold-up with our file. I am so thankful for her wisdom and perseverance. I received an email from Marie telling that she loved me and Rose Carly. I do believe she does. She wants the best for us all.
Rose Carly's future is uncertain with several possibilities. I would ask everyone reading this to pray for her when you get finished reading this. She seems to make an impression on everyone who meets her. Please pray also for Dada, her surrogate mom/nanny. Whatever decision is made will touch her also and she loves Rose Carly dearly.
As for us, well, we are waiting again. We lost our Kaflaure and Marie referred us baby Nerlande. Unfortunately, she was so severely malnourished and fighting TB that Marie was concerned for her life. She felt we needed to wait for another referral. When Rose Carly's former placement fell through, we happily acccepted that referral. We could just imagine her as a part of our family. When I told Scott about Rose Carly's health issues, he asked me if I thought we should just give up. If it were only for us, I would maybe say yes. The reason we wanted to adopt from Haiti in the first place was to offer a child a chance she would not get if she stayed in her situation. That has not changed. There is still a little girl out there that needs us. I can't explain why we are having these experiences. I do know that now there are three precious little girls that are in my family's hearts that we pray for daily. I never received a picture of Nerlande but the other two are framed and sitting on a table in my bedroom with my other children. They sit as a constant reminder that they are real and have needs and I refuse to ever forget them.

We live in the country on 10 acres on top of a mountain. It's gorgeous and we have lots of privacy. We love it. Across the road is a pond and pasture with pretty little miniature ponies. To our left is a beautiful horse farm. On our right, on 20 acres, is my sister and family ( husband, 2 bio adult kids and 5 adopted kids 17 and under who are african-american). The road we live on is a dead-end road about 1 1/2 miles long with only 6 neighbors. It's a relatively quiet area with little traffic. Our kids have the whole outdoors at their disposal. Between our two families, we have enough for just about any sport or game they want to play.

In the fall, one of their favorite sports is what we call "hillbilly sledding". Today was perfect for it. They each found a large piece of cardboard. They moved about to different hills and slid or surfed down in the leaves or pinestraw. It's hillarious! They have a blast. We don't get much snow here so this is second best. I'll try to get some pictures next weekend when they go to the big hill on the back of our property.

Rose Carly's November Picture

The open door policy at PAC is such an incredible blessing. There is such a large group of families adopting from PAC that almost every month someone is visiting. The moms are sweet and try their best to take at least one photo of each child or include them in a group photo. All of the families at home are like vultures stalking the yahoo group or the snapfish photo site waiting....waiting. Considering that I probably won't get to go back for another visit and actually meet my baby girl before our adoption is final, pictures are all I have of this precious little life who will one day be a part of our family.

It's also fun to see how the other children are growing and thriving. Many I recognize from my visit in May. They all look healthy and happy. It's interesting to see orphanage life in action. I have not been to the new PAC 2 so I love to see the pictures from there. I print off various pictures to keep for Rose Carly's scrapbook. I usually print off one of the visiting family with their child. It's amazing how attached and connected one can feel with someone they have only conversed with online. Rose Carly should be less than 2 when she comes home so she probably won't have a great many memories of Haiti. I want to have lots of pictures of the orphanage and the wonderful families that were truly a huge part of her adoption journey.

Family Pictures

We got our pictures back over the weekend. I think they turned out pretty good. We had a lot of fun doing them anyway.

Soccer is finally over as of last night. In the recreational league, Noah's U-6 team came in 3rd in his division and Lucas' U-14 team battled it out to come in 1st place. Caleb's team came in 3rd in the state in the division 2 league. We are so proud of them all.

We are all battling the sniffles after being out in the breezy fall weather for days and nights on end. Fortunately, with the drought we are still having, the weather was beautiful. I am not a sports lover until it's one of my kids out there and then I can scream and cheer with the best of them. I guess it's part of being a mom.